HISTORY

MASSERIA BONELLI: PAST AND PRESENT.

Built in the century of David and Gioconda, originally it was the Canons Chapter’s Home, kind donation of the pious Silvia Saraceno. Firstly it was the property of De Tintis dynasty, then of the Count of Conversano, Giangirolamo Acquaviva. Originally it was composed of three basements, a main door with a vestibule, three upper chambers, a big stable, a church and other comforts. In the course of time, new close and open plots of land, vineyards, wells, palm groves, pigsties, farmyards, and other rural comforts, contributed to increase the property.

It was the thirteenth year of the nineteenth century, when Gaetano Murena, creditor of the Count Giangirolamo Acquaviva, obtained the expropriation of the property. Legal vicissitudes gave the farm to the local municipal government of Noci (Bari). The property was shared in twenty-two different portions and assigned to the poorest people. Owned by both aristocrats and plebs, the farm gained a big charm that, still now, it preserves among its walls. The same charm that, some years ago, persuaded Mr Vito Passaro to buy the property and bring it back to its old splendour, giving it a new life.